The reason for this is that inside of /downloads/ there is a whole bunch of files that are hard-coded with the paths for the original installation. This is totally fine if you want to keep a development copy on one server, and the live copy on another. But if you want to be able to update the live site – this won’t work.

You’ve got two options if you want to move your site to a new server and still be able to use Magento Connect:

• Justice League: The New Frontier buy

Option 1: The Standard Way

This is probably the easiest way to do it for most people. This is what you are going to want to do:

1. Upload a fresh copy of Magento onto the new server (don’t run the installer yet)
2. Copy over your Themes/Templates, Skins, Images, and Custom Modules
3. Dump the database from the original, and import the database to the new site
4. Run the installer – and enter all the necessary info
5. Go into the Magento Connect Manager, and install this extension: magento-core/Mage_All_Latest

You should then be good to go!

Option 2: The Package Extension Way

Unfortunately, I actually don’t know how to do this method yet – but according to Varien, this is a good way to do it. So, I believe what you *would* do is to import your database to the new server, install a fresh copy of Magento, and then using the Magento Connect Manager, I think you can bring over your package.

Hopefully I can get some time to look into how to do this.